Champagne & Sushi.

Taking advantage of the visit of our importer from Japan, Marie-Noëlle proposed to set up a tasting in order to detect the most beautiful matching beetween champagne and sushi.

You can easily imagine that it was not possible to offer sushi with mediocre quality to these specialist. Only the best. The challenge was not the champagne this time. To select the best Sushi, Marie-Noëlle had the invaluable assistance of Masako (our  contact in France for the Japanese market). As a first step, they have created a list of a dozen of Sushi to have samples for every tastes and every flavours.

After a first test "incognito" at a dinner at the restaurant, the realisation of the Sushi was entrusted to Jean-Pierre Guyard and his team (Sushi Shop in Reims) which has done a superb job, offering very nice and colorfull Suhi, but also very good, and in the delay. The story tell that our fine Japanese tasters, specialist in the matter says taht some of the French Sushi were better than the Japanese ones ! It is to say.

At the end of more than 2 hours of tasting, 9 cuvées of Champagne Henriet Bazin have shown attraction for some sushi, offering superb association, and gorgeous weddings.

The results are confidential for the moment, but we will tell you more very soon.

Selection of the buds.

The selection of the buds come approximatly 1 month after the opening of the buds. It is again a manual task that need to go in each vines, and to take care about each branch of each cep to remove some of the new shoots. With 9 000 vines per hectare for our estate which has 7.5. It's not less than 67 500 cep which will be shecked one by one.

But why do we have to remove future branches ?

To be fruitfull (bear fruit) shoots that grows this year must come from a but established on a branch of last year. If the new branch is a coming from one of 2 years or more, it will not carry grappes, but will consume the sap. It is therefore necessary to eliminate those new shoots to prevent it taking too much sap unnecessarily. So, we remove new shoots from the bottom of the cep or from buds of old branches.

Floral tasting.

Flowers have always been the second passion of Marie-Noëlle, after the champagne of course. But it is the endless waiting for the spring that gave her the desire to organize this floral tasting.

This amazing experience is to find flowers that make up the aromatic palette of four of our vintages. The idea was to select a range of a dozen of flowers and present each of them in glasses for tasting so that they can be isolated and independently smelt. Tasters have simply to smell each and others, and compare with the aromas of the flute of champagne to decide if, yes or not, the bouquet expresses by each flower can be found in the cuvée.

To avoid any "a priori" each bottle was label by a simple number, tasters couldn't so refer their knowledge to imagine the flowers. The resultat was that more objective.

Once the flowers have been selected, Severine Schopphoven, creative in floral art for the 2 "Eauxygene" Stores located in the heart of Champagne made a composition of each cuvée, a sort of floral reflection for our blends.

Our friends, around the table, where all agreed on the difficulty to carry out such an exercise, as rare and unusual. Some flowers, such as Lily, Lily of the Valey, Freesia express perfumes so powerful and heady  that we where obliged to open the windows to "change" the air.

The bouquets are :

Selection de Parcelles :
  50% Chardonnay from Villers-Marmery (1er Cru)
  50% Pinot Noir from Verzy et Verzenay (Grand Cru)
  70% harvest 2008 and 30% réserve wine from 1968 to 2007
Rose : 6 dégustateurs
Freesia : 5 d
Lilac : 4 d
Wallflower : 4 d
Violette : 3 d

Blanc de Noirs :
  100% Pinot Noir Verzy from Verzenay (Grand Cru)
  70% harvest 2008 and 30% réserve wine from 1968 to 2007
Lime tree: 8 dégustateurs
Rose : 6 d
Freesia : 4 d
Lily : 4 d
Peony : 4 d
Orchid : 4 d

Blanc de Blancs :
  100% Chardonnay from Villers-Marmery (1er Cru)
  70% harvest 2008 and 30% réserve wine from 1968 to 2007
Lilac : 5 dégustateurs
Rose : 5 d
Lily of the valley: 4 d
Verbena: 4 d
Lime tree: 4 d

Carte Or Millésime 2006 :
  40% Chardonnay from Villers-Marmery (1er Cru)
  60% Pinot Noir from Verzy et Verzenay (Grand Cru)
Peony: 5 dégustateurs
Violette : 4 d
Star Anise: 3 d
Lime tree: 3 d
Hawthorn : 3 d

4th of may.

1st of May.

28th of april

Nothing change those last 2 days because of cold temperatures and humidity.

26th of April.

The coton that insulate the bud was washed by the hard rain we had today. The vines uses this watter to accelerate the maturation of the bud.